General Faculty
Meeting
Attendees:
The purpose of this Special General Faculty meeting was to disseminate the initial results of the satisfaction survey. Since it is a meeting of the faculty, general business can be conducted.
Purpose of Survey - Bruce Nauman
Purpose of Survey – Bruce Nauman
President Bruce Nauman opened the meeting with the following
story: In the 1950s former United States President and current Columbia
University President Dwight Eisenhower attended his first faculty meeting. At the meeting he attended, he said he was
happy to meet the employees of the University.
A senior faculty member told him “Mr. President, the faculty
There were 188 total respondents to the survey. There were many people who responded anonymously despite the protection provided by the double envelope technique. Thirty three of the 188 responses were sent via email.
The following comments were made via email to Bruce:
“I like the idea of voting on this matter. Yet, double envelope one way or the other, still there is a name. And being fully paranoid, this is not anonymous to my standards. So I cannot vote. Or you will receive mine without the outer envelope, just like the ones you referred to in your recent e-mail.” Bruce responded that since this survey is meant to be done annually, next year an outside firm will be contacted to conduct the survey.
“It
was reported that relatively few faculty know who Francine is, and, upon
looking her name up, have found that she is listed as Administrative
Coordinator in the Provost
“My satisfaction level is so low it
There were five choices of response from very favorable to very unfavorable. A number grade was assigned from 1-4. Very satisfied was 4, Somewhat Satisfied was 3, Neutral is 2, Somewhat Unsatisfied is 1 and very unsatisfied is 0. The results were read. See attached. Schools Deans were lumped together. At some point, they will be separated by school.
The final slide showed how various departments rate the
President. “Chosen” means those
departments chosen to move into the
The comments were extremely valuable and very detailed. After some debate the
Question from the floor:[1] Among the 188 voters, does that include the anonymous votes?
Bruce Nauman: There were 22 anonymous votes. The statistics are for 166: 188-22.
Question from the floor: Can you give us any general trends or comments that repeated themselves?
Bruce: The comments were not good. The results were bad, but the comments read worse. Those who were motivated to submit comments were motivated to submit quite negative comments. Words like fear and mistrust came up frequently.
Question from the floor: How does the Senate propose to move forward to improve the situation? Let’s assume the results accurately reflect the feeling of the people. What is important is to take some action and put some processes in place to improve in the areas of particular concern. How is the Senate going to move forward?
Bruce: That is what this meeting is for. The whole faculty can be involved since it’s a general faculty meeting. It is open for discussion.
Comment from the floor: I assume the
Bruce: We have a meeting with the Chairman of the Board tomorrow and the results will be presented. The results were already transmitted to the President, Provost and Dean of the Graduate school. They also will get all the comments.
Question from the floor: Some time ago, there was a policy that in order for anything to be given to the Board of Trustees, it had to be approved by the President first. Did you get her approval to send it to the Board?
Bruce: no
Question from the floor: If you removed the vote from the biology department, what would the results look like?
Bruce: The departmental votes have not been separated. Regardless, the results are definitive that the faculty at this Institute are substantially dissatisfied with the management of the Institute.
Question from the floor: Do you feel the need to display the names of other departments that weighted heavily against it?
Bruce: As you may know, there was a Constitutional Amendment put forth last year. Of those who voted, 84% were in favor of having the survey on an annual basis. The Board of Trustees rejected the amendment, but Sam Heffner said the faculty can have such a survey. Part of the conversation with Sam Heffner was that he did not think that many of the faculty would be dissatisfied. He thought since the President had so much turnover in new faculty and was doing so many good things, the survey would show a great deal of support for President Jackson. The departments that seem to have benefited the most are those that were discussed earlier.
Question from the floor: Why doesn’t the presentation list every department?
Bruce: We were
pressed to make these results available at this time. There will be more results at the
Comment from the floor: I see a reason not to disclose results by department and school. The numbers may be so small within any particular department that individually they may not be meaningful.
Bruce: True, we will have time to discuss that now for the 1/26 meeting.
Question from the floor: Without knowing what the comments are, how are we to put our finger on the source of some of the dissatisfaction?
Bruce: The
Question from the floor: Why did you ask for them if you’re not going to disclose them?
Bruce: That’s a wonderful question- to vent. They are being disclosed to those who they apply to as well as to their supervisor. My original inclination was to disclose them. But I can understand that it really isn’t beneficial to disclose what people said specifically when they aren’t the individual or the supervisor of that individual.
Question from the floor: Is there any way of knowing whether those people who actually voted are those that are unsatisfied? I know of some satisfied people who did not care to vote or they were neutral. The other thing is that it could be viewed also that those in the biology department who are supposedly benefiting, as compared to those who are not getting much are whiners. Can it be viewed that way or are there specific proposals?
Bruce: If the comments are distributed, I think you’ll find that those are not the kinds of reasons you would expect.
Question from the floor: Why is the biology department happy?
Bruce: Ask biology. They have had a huge influx of faculty. It’s practically a remade department.
Question from the floor: Based on the first envelope, do you have any idea who responded among the so-called old faculty and new faculty?
Bruce: The tenured faculty was around 50% and untenured faculty response around 20%. I don’t think it is all apathy either.
Question from the floor: To make a change, sometimes one is in an unpopular position. I would not consider this survey to be particularly damning. If you are going to make a transformation to the Institute, you’ll make waves. More to the point, there doesn’t seem to be any presentation other than a vote and cause and effect. Are there common threads that indicate something needs to be fixed?
Bruce: Yes. The comments are quite revealing. A common thread is management much more than
direction. We saw the
Question from the floor: Do you mean people are being mistreated or fiduciary responsibilities are not being met?
Bruce: The comments will reveal that to the academic chain of command.
Question from the floor: Is that what this institution is… a chain of command?
Bruce: Yes. Read the comments. Lack of collegiality was used many times.
Question from the floor: The evaluation of the Dean of the
Bruce: Yes, the comments make it very clear that it is perceived that he implemented a terrible plan enthusiastically. If the implementation had been more reluctant, he would have gotten higher ratings.
Question from the floor: How do we make things better? We are in a catch 22. You can’t give us the details, but you said the purpose of the meeting was to make suggestions. How can we react to that offer without knowing more of the details? Does that mean we’ll rely on the Faculty Senate to absorb this and then come out with a series of recommendations to improve the situation?
Bruce: We might have some more issues from the floor.
J. Keith Nelson: Let me say to start that I’ve worked at the Institution for 20 years and I love it but I have been concerned like many of you about the way things are going. I’d like to look at the results of the survey in a positive way. I’d like to make a proposal that I’ll share with you. The Proposal is to hold a plebiscite on a number of key issues. There were 5 issues and they are down to 3. The purpose is to try to understand the unrest that is displayed in the survey results that were just heard. The purpose is to not only understand but to put some pressure on the administration to turn things right. I am an Englishman and I don’t mind criticism of my English. The suggestion is that we take it a step further to try to determine the nature of the unrest and to hopefully and positively give to the administration some guidance.
Bruce: As to the question about what we can do about it and what the comments showed, this list addresses many of the comments. There is a general consensus that there is too little faculty input across the board, but these are specific things.
This is a proposal by an individual faculty member. He knew the overall outcome would be negative and he wanted to make a contribution.
The motion was made to consider the proposal and seconded.
Comment from the floor: I think this is a good summary of dissatisfaction, but if we were to send this to the President, it doesn’t say anything about her successes and I think it would be an unbalanced way to present this since she has had many successes. This just seems very one-sided and is not the right thing to do.
Bruce: I thought this was a proposal to have a plebiscite.
Comment from the floor: These are issues that one individual has identified, but perhaps other faculty may identify other issues to raise that should be added to the list.
Bruce: These are specific grievances.
Question from the floor: Will the Faculty Senate have access to the comments?
Bruce: The
Peter: I
propose that this plebiscite be developed by people who have full knowledge of
the comments of the survey and that the plebiscite comes from the
Vice President of the Faculty Senate Achille Messac: I second your thoughts. This is new to everyone here but you and
Bruce. I feel uncomfortable making
substantial policy on the fly like this.
Indeed we need to identify where we go from here. We established some facts, now it’s time to
determine where we go from here and the process. Everyone can help determine the process
here. We need to move forward but I
don’t know if it will be wise to identify three issues. I have seen the comments briefly, but I could
not say what to add. I would be
concerned about moving so quickly. In
terms of the
Comment from the floor: I think that the specific points could probably be extended into quite a list if you talked to older or younger faculty but I don’t think it addresses the issues coming from the survey which seemed to have raised more general issues perhaps the most central being the communication issues. So I don’t know if it really is productive to address specifics like this which were not addressed in the survey, comments aside. We do not have specific mention of particular policies in the survey but there was a general sense of comments in communication which I don’t understand how that translates to mismanagement. I think addressing that would be the more effective way.
Bruce: The communication comments dealt not with the lack of speed but a lack of meaningful impact resulting from a lack of communication. Not that they didn’t listen but they didn’t modify their behavior based on listening. That is what those communications comments were. I don’t think any of the comments were so bad that they shouldn’t be viewed. But that was a difference in opinion.
Comment from the floor: I would like to say that I think it is premature to vote on a list of things that have been identified as a problem because when I read this list I was surprised that these would be the “most important” things to fix. If we accept this list then it is almost as if this list is fixed then all is perfect, which I doubt. I think it is now the Faculty Senate’s job, on the basis of their expert knowledge. Then the Faculty Senate can say at another faculty meting what they feel are the priorities and suggestions for the administration to fix. Perhaps also include items of improvement.
Comment from the floor: These are certain results of a process. Just addressing these three issues doesn’t get to the root cause of the problem and does not address the more significant aspect of the decision-making process.
Bruce: You mean these aren’t strong enough?
Comment from the floor: These are results of the process. The issue is how we got to these: the process, the management style.
Comment from the floor: I think you answered this at the beginning when President Eisenhower referred to the faculty as employees. We all feel that Shirley feels that way about us. The real solution is that the men and women ARE RPI and WE should run this place. WE should determine the curriculum, WE should determine the policies and WE should not be told from the top down that employee #660019, this is what you’re going to do. All it has achieved so far is that people are refusing to do things. No one has bought in. The evaluation of the Rensselaer Plan shows that people have not bought in to the Plan. It all comes back to the opening statement of President Eisenhower.
Bruce: If you read all the comments, those were the comments described in various ways. Now, Keith’s thought was to hit a few specific items. I don’t understand how a general problem can be addressed without some tangible improvement of items. How do we say, “Hey, don’t treat us as employees”. What’s the proof in that? These three tangibles are something that maybe could happen.
Question from the floor: If the administration dealt with these three items and resolved them to the satisfaction of the majority of the people who expressed concern, what are we going to do, give them another list of the next three?
Bruce: I think a lesson would have been learned.
Question from the floor: Would the maker of the motion accept a revision of the motion to remand the original proposal to the Faculty Senate for further consideration? Keith Nelson agreed to the revision and it was seconded.
All in favor of remanding it to the Faculty Senate- all in favor: 43, opposed: 6, 1 abstention
A motion was made to make the comments available to the faculty. It was seconded.
Comment from the floor: There is a meeting with the Board of Trustees and a meeting with the President coming up. I would like to see what happens before we take a next step.
Secretary of the Faculty Rena Bizios: A word of caution. This is a very serious issue. If this info becomes available, those who voted have a right to see the comments. You saw the summary. If this is leaked and you see it tomorrow in the paper, we’ll have a problem of credibility which will be difficult to replace by building bridges of communication. We need a solution to that before I vote for that at this particular time.
Question from the floor: You think it’s a bad idea to release them now?
Rena: Yes.
Comment from the floor: I certainly understand the sense of everyone wanting access to the information; I think it’s unwise to act that quickly. Many people made them without any sense that they would immediately be made public.
Recording Secretary Joel Plawski: The Faculty Senate thought this survey would be an annual event. It may be more important to see how the comments change from year to year, not necessarily to just read comments from any one year.
Comment from the floor: We have the comments. The point is whether they should be released right now.
Bruce: There is no comment that would reveal who the writer is.
Comment from the floor: When the survey was filled out, there was no commentary on the use of the comments. I would feel different if the statement had been made that the comments may be disseminated. I made candid comments for the FSEC. That should be taken into consideration.
Vice President of the Faculty Senate Achille Messac: I agree. The ultimate objective is to see where we are and where do we go from here. Next year, I’ll have Bruce’s job so it may be more critical to fix those things. I propose that we not vote in favor of it
Comment from the floor: I think it would be a mistake. I am reluctant to accept these as representative. Statistically, regardless of turnout, that is not representative of how the other 50% feel. As much as it might be a move in the right direction, I still don’t think this is representative of 100% of the faculty.
Comment from the floor: Almost everyone is here
because they care about
All in favor of disseminating the comments to the faculty: In favor: 3, opposed: a lot
Comment from the floor: I have great respect for Keith and those on the FSEC, as previously serving as Vice President and President it disturbs me that information was leaked to him.
J. Keith Nelson: The only thing I was told was that it was an overwhelming result.
That was not a FSEC decision- it was made by Bruce.
Comment from the floor: I’ve been retired for 14 years. I’ve been in the university atmosphere since
I was 16, in talking with friends and relatives there has been a change in all
university life. People walk around
campus and no longer smile. I think this is part of the atmosphere that is
going on. It is somewhat universal, not
just at RPI. I’ve seen a lot of Presidents
come and go. When they come from
outside, they do not know what people like.
Mr. Pipes took two weeks to get into trouble; Dr. Jackson took 6 weeks
to get into trouble before she knew about the University. Sit down with people and find out what it is really
like before you put your foot into it.
[1] Due to the large number of attendees, it was not possible to identify all individuals with questions and comments from the floor. As a result, only those speaking from the podium and members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee are identified.